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The WaPo reports today that a “strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers.”

In Baghdad, for example, nearly three-quarters of residents polled said they would feel safer if U.S. and other foreign forces left Iraq, with 65 percent of those asked favoring an immediate pullout, according to State Department polling results obtained by The Washington Post.

In another new poll, released today by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, “found that 71 percent of Iraqis questioned want the Iraqi government to ask foreign forces to depart within a year.”

By large margins, though, Iraqis believed that the U.S. government would refuse the request, with 77 percent of those polled saying the United States intends keep permanent military bases in the country.

The results and the most “negative attitudes toward U.S.-led forces since they invaded Iraq in 2003,” contrast sharply with views expressed by both the Bush administration and “the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.”

Oh, c’mon Ginny, I’m trying to help you. Heck, I’m giving the left a “layup”. I know geniuses like yourself think that you are far beyond simple truth. However, some times, simple truth is as it seems. Good is good. Bad is bad. “Knowledge” shouldn’t be rated more than it is, an opinion for most of the time if someone mentions the word. Hmm. “Knowing what I don’t know”. I’m not sure what this means, but I’ll take a stab. I think it means that I should try to understand things beyond what the “facts” allow.

It’s so unfortunate that the Iraq war is so down in the polls and poor President Bush just can’t seem to change the poor opinion of the job he is doing on the war. I feel sad for the republicans because they have been trying to change public opinion for such a long time. But they just can’t seem to do it.

Probus, it’s a silly thought to think that a war would be “popular”. It’s not popular, and everyone would like our troops home. Doing what’s right in spite of what polls would show to be politically expediant is called “backbone” & takes courage.

WWII was popular, Gulf War gave Bush I and 91% approval rating until he mismanaged the economy. This Iraq war was popular until this administration’s gross incompetence and simple mindedness came to our attention. This is a democracy not listening to the people has hurt this president and his party. He doesn’t do it because he thinks he is right, he cannot admit he was and is wrong.

No, I am not a genius. I was taught to question – which is the beginning of wisdom. In teaching patients how to take care of themselves if they have a chronic illness, the tendency in health care is to just give them directions. I have been telling them WHY for thirty years. Their compliance goes up significantly when they get the black and white linked to the gray.

NOT knowing what you don’t know has to do with the fact that human knowledge is doubling at an astronomical rate of under two years. That’s just knowledge – new discoveries, facts, applied science. There is no way any of us can begin to keep up or remember even significant details, let alone all the qualifying information, opinions, etc.

There is a rule in intelligence analysis that once you sift through all the data and come up with the essential information (that gray stuff too), you will often come to the opposite conclusion than the big bunch of data pointed to.

My philosophy on good and bad, right and wrong is derived from a wonderful book The Phantom Tollboth by Norton Juster.

We have to identify, in history and the present, whether we were/are doing:
-the right thing for the right reasons (WWII )
-the right thing for the wrong reasons (Gulf War I)
-the wrong thing for the right reasons (some aspects of any Government program)
-the wrong thing for the wrong reasons (Iraq, Vietnam,)
Leading to my observations:
-Repeating the same thing and expecting the same result can also be stupid.
-Knowledge is power – if you can figure out how to properly apply it.

The way to reach this is to use both left and right brain reasoning, until you come up with an answer from both that does not conflict with the other. And, there should be two answers.

As far as other forms of knowledge and intelligence. Dealing with the facts is not that hard. Like being able to accurately quote a statement from another post, instead of leaving off the first word – which changes the meaning- and arguing against the distorted idea.
I think there is another way to handle knowledge or it’s lack: don’t look at anything that might lead you to change your mind.

The human brain has a filter that basically keeps too much information from coming into the brain. It works sort of in reverse. The mind has certain subjects or ideas that it will focus on quickly. Others do not get the attention.

The “polls” you use, but don’t cite, as irrelevent and therefore make the Iraqi poll irrrelevent are either fictitous or irrelevent to your argument. And the argument is as arrogant as it is ludicrous.

The Iraqis have no say in what they want their government to do??? I thought we were supposed to be bringing them democracy. At least have some respect for their opinons. They might just possibly understand the complexity of their country and it’s situation better than you.

Oh, kids. FYI, until the age of seven, the brain is still learning how to distinguish fantasy and immagination from reality. This is why young children believe in monsters under their beds, Santa Claus, and immaginary friends. Unfortunately, the Jesuits figured this out and said “Give us a child until age seven and we have him for life.’

The people I’ve know who didn’t stay with a Christian church despite all that early indoctrination are the ones who could question. Where did Cain’s wife come from? etc. When they got told to shut up, they lost their trust in the people teaching them and the subject.